What it's about: Exiled Iranian journalist and women's rights advocate Masih Alinejad chronicles her life spent resisting the Islamic republic in this captivating and informative memoir.

Did you know? Alinejad is the creator of the social media movement My Stealthy Freedom, which encourages women to defy Iran's compulsory hijab laws by sharing photographs of themselves without their head scarves.

What it's about: In 1927, author and anthropologist Zora Neale Hurston interviewed Cudjo Lewis (c. 1841-1935), one of the last known survivors of the Atlantic slave trade; the transcript of their conversation was only recently discovered.

Read it for: Hurston's folkloristic preservation of Lewis's West African vernacular and storytelling.

Is it for you? Lewis' clear account of his capture and enslavement is both graphic and illuminating.

What it is: a moving and insightful peek into the creative process and everyday life of a prolific writer, leisurely told in a series of nine essays.

About the author: Novelist Richard Russo's Empire Falls won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2002; this is his first essay collection.

Don't miss: The poignant "Imagining Jenny" originally appeared as the afterword to Jennifer Boylan's 2003 memoir She's Not There and discusses how Russo's friendship with Boylan changed after the latter's gender-reassignment surgery.

What it is: the raw yet inspiring story of Nadia Murad's escape from captivity by the Islamic State, for whom she was forced to serve as a "sabiya" (or sex slave) after her Yazidi village in Iraq was destroyed in 2014.

About the author: Nadia Murad is a Nobel Peace Prize nominee and the United Nations Goodwill Ambassador for the Dignity of Survivors of Human Trafficking.

What it is: a riveting and reflective account of the human rights abuses perpetuated at the Guantánamo Bay military prison.

What sets it apart: Guantánamo Diary is the first book on the subject to be written by a detainee during his imprisonment.

Book buzz: Written in 2005, Guantánamo Diary remained classified for almost ten years; earlier editions of the book were heavily redacted. This Restored Edition reconstructs previously redacted text and includes a new introduction by Slahi.

What it's about: In 1994, lawyer and social justice activist Bryan Stevenson founded the Equal Justice Initiative, which provides legal representation to inmates on Alabama's death row -- many of whom face miscarriages of justice.

Further reading: Stevenson provides the foreword to Anthony Ray Hinton's heartwrenching and hopeful memoir (and Oprah's latest Book Club selection) The Sun Does Shine: How I Found Life and Freedom on Death Row, which chronicles his 30 years of false imprisonment.